American Son

by Oscar De La Hoya

  I told Richard to go back to Bob and present the new terms. Bob agreed and Richard brought me back a tentative deal. I looked at it, picked up a pen, and wrote on the offer sheet, Plus one Ferrari.

  “What’s that?” Richard asked.

  “I want him to buy me the car,” I said.

  Richard wasn’t so sure about that. “I negotiated hard,” he said, “and I really squeezed the guy. It’s a much better deal. Now I have to go back and ask him for a Ferrari?”

  I wouldn’t back down.

  Richard called Bob, told him we had a deal, but I wanted a Ferrari thrown in.

  “What?” Bob screamed.

  “And, Bob,” Richard added, “it has to be a Maranello.”

  “A what?” Bob said.

  “A Maranello,” repeated Richard. “It’s a certain model of Ferrari.”

  “How much?” asked Bob.

  “About two hundred and twenty thousand dollars.”

  “That’s crazy, just crazy,” Bob said.

  When he, nonetheless, reluctantly agreed, I went down to a Ferrari dealership to get my car. Because the trunk space in that model is so small, there is specially made luggage to fit in there, luggage that runs $18,000 to $20,000. So I ordered that, too.

  When Bob received the bill, he called Richard, screaming, “What’s with this luggage? Eighteen thousand dollars for luggage? I didn’t agree to pay for any luggage.”

  And he didn’t, but he did write the check for my Ferrari.

  After my loss to Mosley in 2000, I decided it was finally time to cut Bob loose.

  As he drove to the office, Richard called Bob from his car to give the promoter the unpleasant news.

  By the time he reached his desk, Richard had a call from Seth Abraham, then the president of HBO Sports. Abraham told him, “Huge mistake. Huge mistake. What are you guys doing? You are going to ruin everything. You can’t do this. Bob Arum is very powerful. It’s the most stupid thing imaginable.”

  Richard calmly replied, “Oscar is determined to do it. He feels, after all these years, he has the right to be free and see what else is out there. We have already filed the lawsuit.”

  Once more, Abraham repeated, “Huge mistake,” and hung up.

  I had made a huge mistake, but it wasn’t cutting my ties to Bob. It was supposedly strengthening them four years earlier with a grand gesture I made at his sixty-fifth birthday party. I presented him with my gold medal, the precious prize that has remained the strongest tangible link to my mother.

  When I split from Bob, I assumed he would give me the medal back, but for years, he refused.

  After the euphoria of winning the gold at Barcelona had settled down, I wondered what to do with the symbol of the greatest accomplishment of my career. Soon after, while house-hunting in Montebello, I was walking up to the second floor in one place when I halted on the stairs. There in front of me was a tiny alcove that looked as if it was designed for a small statue.

  I had a better idea. This would be the spot for my gold medal, a place to display it and stir my memory of my most triumphant moment every time I walked by.

  I needed to look no further. I bought that house, put a picture of my mother in that alcove, hung the gold medal from the frame, and further adorned the little exhibit with an Olympic belt.

  I suppose I should have been concerned that someone might break in and take the medal once my ownership of the house became known. It wasn’t too difficult to learn where I lived, since I had the name De La Hoya welded onto the front gate.

  That medal would have fetched a fortune from some shady memorabilia collector. I guess I was just too naive to think that could happen. Because everybody was always taking care of me in those days, I couldn’t imagine anyone plotting evil against me.

  I couldn’t imagine ever giving that medal away, either, until Mike Hernández put the idea in my head. He was talking to Bob at the time about a three-fight deal that would earn me over $20 million.

  “Jump on it,” said Hernández. “Don’t even negotiate. Just say yes.”

  To show our appreciation, Hernández felt we should give Bob something nice for his upcoming birthday.

  “What do you give the man who has everything?” Hernández said. “Give him your medal.”

  “I can’t do that,” I said.

  “He will really appreciate it,” Hernández said, “and it will do us a lot of good in the future.”

  He talked me into it. The look on Bob’s face when I brought the medal into the room in Reno where his party was being held was priceless, which was gratifying to me.

  But after a few days, I regretted my generosity. What was I thinking? Why did I listen to Hernández?

  I wasn’t going to ask Bob to return my gift, but I assumed he would someday. I certainly expected him to do so after our acrimonious parting. Instead, he announced he would hold on to the medal until I retired.

  How could he do that? Why would you refuse to turn over someone else’s gold medal, especially when you have a feud going with that person? How can you keep something that is so precious to the other person? I couldn’t understand it.

  Finally, in 2007, after eleven years, Bob agreed to give back the medal. He returned it in a public ceremony at the White Memorial Medical Center in East L.A., where it would temporarily go on display at the Cecilia Gonzalez De La Hoya Cancer Center, named for my mother.

  It turned out to be a very emotional moment for me. Seeing that medal for the first time in years, everything came flooding back, the struggle I went through to win the gold, the presentation of the medal, and my trip to the cemetery to show it to my mother. I broke down crying as it all unfolded in my mind.

  I had regained my precious link with my mother.

  XXIII

  BURNED

  He was known as Sugar Shane Mosley. A more apt description would be Speedy Shane Mosley.

  His style had been built on speed as far back as I can remember. And there was plenty to remember. We moved in the same circles from the time we were kids, fighting in the same tournaments, two hot prospects from Southern California, me from East L.A. and Shane from Pomona.

  He was known for his great discipline and dedication in the gym and for being one of the nicest guys in the sport, an opponent you just couldn’t find a reason to hate.

  Shane was always one or two weight classes above me and a couple of years older. We sparred in Colorado Springs when I was about seventeen. It was a great session, so great that I recall thinking if I ever met him in the pros, it would be tough because he was so fast.

  We did meet in 2000, but my first opponent that year was Derrell Coley at Madison Square Garden in New York. I couldn’t see myself losing to Coley, but it could have happened because, for several days that week, I could barely see at all.

  My problem started innocently enough on a Wednesday. It was February, freezing in New York, not my kind of weather. Being a Southern California guy, I love the sun, love to get a tan.

  I bought a small tanning machine and had it sent to my room. You get protective covers for your eyes, but, stupidly, I didn’t use them. You are supposed to expose yourself to the rays of the machine for no more than ten minutes. Again, I was dumb. I exposed myself for twenty minutes and leaned in closer than I should have for maximum effect. Got to look good for the girls.

  When I woke up Thursday morning, I realized the folly of what I had done. My eyes were swollen shut. I was forced to wear sunglasses to the press conference that day, then had to cancel my training session because, even when I finally pried my eyes open, all I saw was a blur. I stayed in bed much of Friday, coming out only for the weigh-in, and finally, thanks to rest and a lot of ice, my vision cleared Saturday in time for the fight.

  I went in there like a bull and stopped Coley with a body shot in the seventh round.

  Shane and I were to meet at Staples Center in June. I was worried as heck. This was the first guy who could match my speed.

  I had struggled to make weight
at 147 pounds, so when I did, I felt like celebrating. I went out with my team to a seafood restaurant in East L.A. and ordered two dozen oysters. Not the best idea the night before a fight.

  I went back to my room at the Beverly Hills Hotel and turned in about 9 P.M. only to wake up about ninety minutes later with excruciating pain in my stomach. I was cold and shaking, my stomach problems getting worse. I had eaten a bad oyster.

  I wasn’t any better in the morning. How could I fight like this, I asked myself, especially against Shane Mosley?

  I always gain something after eating following the weigh-in. At welterweight, I might go up as high as 153 pounds. This time I lost. When I weighed myself in the morning, I was down to 145 and feeling weak.

  In my dressing room at Staples Center, some friends of mine came in to say they had bet heavily on me. The look of joy on their faces was quickly replaced by dread when I told them I was feeling so bad, I might cancel the fight. Just touching my stomach, I felt pain. What would happen if Shane hit that stomach?

  I didn’t cancel. I couldn’t. This was a major opponent in a blockbuster fight in my hometown in my Staples Center debut.

  It was a brutal fight. But even though I was physically drained, it was a great match that went down to the last round.

  He won on a split decision. Unlike the Trinidad fight, I thought it was the right decision.

  But adding this defeat to the Trinidad decision less than a year earlier, I experienced a wave of self-pity as I prepared to enter the postfight press conference. I felt people were out to get me, wanted me to lose. I was blaming the world, wanting to quit, get out of boxing altogether.

  With my emotions running wild in the heat of the defeat, I told myself I had been stifled by promoters, managers, and trainers. If I was really going to quit, it was time for the world to finally hear from the real Oscar De La Hoya. What the media heard in a bitter press conference was me rambling on about perceived injustices against me.

  “I’m going to rethink my career,” I said, “including retirement. I’m going to rethink my whole game plan of life. I’m still a very hungry fighter, but boxing turns me off right now. With what goes on in boxing, I don’t feel I can continue on like this.”

  What did that mean? I had grown suspicious of Bob Arum after the Trinidad fight, thinking that perhaps he wasn’t giving me my fair share of the revenue. That’s one of the reasons Richard Schaefer was taking over my affairs. I thought maybe Bob had sensed what was coming, had figured out that I was planning on leaving him. Maybe that had motivated him to talk to the judges and cause me to lose. Maybe he did it to set up a rematch, which would mean more money for him.

  All kinds of crazy thoughts were going through my head.

  Looking back now, I don’t feel that way anymore about Bob. Since becoming a promoter myself, I have come to the realization that there’s no way any promoter can tell a judge how to mark his scorecard. It just doesn’t happen.

  When I calmed down afterward, I realized it was just me over-reacting to the loss. I was angry, hurt.

  When those feelings faded, what remained was my resolve to shake up my operation after two losses in my previous three fights. I was done with Bob and with Robert Alcazar. As long as I was going to clean my plate, I might as well do it all at the same time.

  I had lost my last bit of faith in Robert after he sided with Clancy in the Trinidad fight.

  That’s when I told myself, Robert’s got to go. Now it’s not my father or Bob Arum or Bruce Trampler or Mike Hernández saying it. Now it’s me. No more excuses. No more camps with Robert as the figurehead. No more trainers surreptitiously calling the shots under him. It’s time for somebody else. Period.

  I couldn’t fool myself anymore by saying I was still undefeated under Robert. Reality check: I had lost. This is what can happen with a trainer who is limited.

  When it came to actually showing Robert the door, however, I delayed and delayed. Before I knew it, I had signed to fight Shane another match that figured to be tough. It didn’t seem like the right time to make a drastic move like cutting adrift a trainer who had been with me for so long and knew me so well.

  So I gave Robert one more fight,

  Afterward, with my father present, I sat down with Robert and informed him he was no longer my trainer. It was not a pleasant conversation. Robert was like family.

  “It’s time for a change,” I said, struggling to get the words out.

  “Oh no,” Robert responded. “I can change my style. I can learn new methods.”

  “I’m sorry, Robert,” I said, “but we are going to take another route. We can still be friends.”

  Robert wished me luck, but in a way that indicated he didn’t really mean it. I think he kind of hoped I would lose again. Not that he would wish anything bad upon me, but I think he wanted me to struggle enough to realize I really needed him in my corner, that maybe he was a good trainer after all. I understood his feelings.

  I felt bad for Robert when I let him go, but I knew it was the best thing for me.

  I haven’t seen him since that day. My father has called him a few times, and my brother keeps in touch, but Robert and I haven’t had any direct contact.

  It’s a shame because we had a good relationship. We helped each other. He had my back for a long time and I had his.

  I had been through trainers who stressed offense, and those who stressed defense. I had trainers who had worked me hard and those who hardly worked me at all. I had a trainer who had been with me since my amateur days and trainers who never really knew me.

  So what did I want after releasing Robert Alcazar? The best of what I had before. I wanted a taskmaster who would splash water in my face at five thirty in the morning if I was still in bed, and order me to get out and run. I wanted someone who knew both sides of the fight game, offense and defense. I wanted someone who had been in ring wars himself and could understand the physical and emotional demands on someone going into battle.

  Ultimately, I realized I wanted Floyd Mayweather Sr. Floyd had a sixteeen-year career in the ring, taught an intriguing defensive style, and was a spirited disciplinarian.

  He came with a heavy load of baggage as well. He served five years in prison for drug dealing and had an ongoing, ugly feud with his son, Floyd Mayweather Jr., whom he once trained.

  Once I hired Floyd Sr. in October of 2000, all the negatives faded into the background. Right away Floyd imposed his will on me in camp. There would be no basketball, no Ping-Pong. If I tried to take a day off, good luck. Wasn’t going to happen. I was literally scared to ask him for a break. Even if I didn’t feel good, I would train because I knew, if I said I didn’t want to, he would be angry. He used to say, “If you don’t let me do my job, see ya.”

  Not only did Floyd have me run, but I had to do so with weighted boots. Not only did I pound opponents in sparring sessions, but I was also required to chop wood.

  Sparring sessions were more like actual fights. Floyd wanted me to take my sparring partner’s head off. If the other guy got in a good blow against me, Floyd would start yelling at me, “Hey, man, you got this piece of bleep fighter hitting you. At my age, I could still kick your ass.”

  An outsider might look at all the hard work I was doing and think I must be miserable. Not at all. Training was fun again. This was what I had been missing. He got me in great shape. That is what I loved about Floyd.

  One thing Floyd loved about me was the spotlight. Once he saw the bright lights surrounding my fights, he took center stage. A Muhammad Ali wannabe, Floyd would spout poetry and infuriate opponents. He was always working on his next poem. In camp, we would hear the various versions of the one he was trying out for an upcoming press conference thirty times a day.

  When I was fighting Fernando Vargas, who had previously been convicted on assault charges, Floyd told him at a prefight press conference, “You came here on vacation, but you’re going home to probation.” He had an angle for everybody.

  While Flo
yd could be entertaining and charmed the media, I could have done without the whole sideshow, but because I appreciated all I was learning from him, I bit the bullet and let him do all his attention-grabbing histrionics. I have to admit, though, just being around him gave me a million laughs a day. Floyd was a character, a real piece of work.

  He bragged that he was going to pass on all the tricks he had learned in his own career and make me the first “blaxican” boxer, a combination of the traditional styles employed by black and Mexican fighters.

  Defensively, Floyd taught me to roll my shoulders to avoid punches rather than employing all the techniques involving footwork I had learned under The Professor. With Floyd’s approach, I could stand in front of an opponent, not get hit, and be in great position to launch a counterattack of my own.

  I finally faced Shane again in 2003 after beating Yory Boy Campas earlier that year on a seventh-round TKO.

  The Campas fight featured the mysterious magic potion produced by Bob Arum that was supposed to give Campas a chance against me. It was a marketing gimmick Arum came up with to supply a little juice to a fight that didn’t figure to be competitive.

  But you never know about those things. Every opponent I faced elevated themselves to another level, because, if they could beat me, they were King Kong.

  I was looking forward to the rematch against Shane because this time I would have Mayweather in my corner.

  When I saw Shane at the weigh-in, he looked different. He is always well cut, well defined. This time, though, he seemed bigger, his muscles different. I know he’s a good athlete and I heard he had been doing some heavy lifting with weights, so I figured that’s what it was. He’d bulked up.

  I later heard his name had been linked to the BALCO steroid scandal though I know he said he never took anything and has never been charged with anything.

  I couldn’t believe it when the BALCO story broke because it was Shane. The Shane that I know, the Shane that I grew up with, is honest, the nicest person in boxing. To this day, I maintain he didn’t take anything. He’s not a cheater.